No Growth
No Growth Two words. That’s the whole diagnosis. Every operator I talk to has a list. Difficult managers. Low pay. Bad schedules. Nobody wants to work anymore. They recite it like weather. Something that happens to them. Something that arrived...
Restaurants Don’t Fail. Operators Do.
Not a revenue number. A discipline. At every level of the operation — simultaneously. The operator who didn’t grow never defined what success actually required. Never built the product the Guest actually needed. Never developed the cast that could deliver...
Smaller Isn’t the Answer Either
When a restaurant isn’t producing the margin it should, the building starts to feel like the problem. Too much rent. Too many seats to fill. Too much square footage to heat, cool, staff, and maintain. The operator looks around and...
Your Layout Is Costing You Money Every Shift
The numbers never say layout problem. They say high ticket time. Labor over budget. Team fatigue. Missed peak-hour covers. The cast running harder than they should for the volume they are doing. The supervisor filling gaps that should not exist....
Loyalty Is Not a Discount Problem
What You’re Actually Measuring When operators talk about loyalty, they almost always mean repeat visits. And when they try to drive repeat visits, they almost always reach for the same instrument — a discount, a punch card, a points system,...
![[Transactional Arbitrage]: The Five Bets Underneath Most Restaurants](https://physics.jeffreysummers.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/6.png)
[Transactional Arbitrage]: The Five Bets Underneath Most Restaurants
Five levers, five closing gaps, and the model that doesn’t depend on either.Most operators don’t know they’re running an arbitrage.They think they’re running a restaurant.But if you strip the floor away and look at what’s actually generating the money, what...
You Can’t Hire Better Cast. You Can Hire Better People.
A few weeks ago a colleague posted about hiring four cooks at $20 an hour. Three ghosted. One quit after fifteen minutes because it was too difficult.The post blew up. The comment section turned into a debate about systemic hiring...
You’re Looking Right at It. You Just Can’t See It.
In 1999, researchers at Harvard ran an experiment that changed how we understand human attention.They asked volunteers to watch a video of people passing a basketball and count the passes. While the ball was moving, someone in a full gorilla...
The Casual Full-Service Problem Isn’t the Food
Walk into any casual full-service chain and count the friction points before you’ve ordered your first drink.The menu — laminated, multi-page, every surface covered in promotional pricing and limited-time offers. The QR code that sends you to a mobile ordering...
